What is Ecological Collapse?

The beach at Glimmerglass State Park in New York

I have routinely mentioned ecosystem and ecological collapse throughout my articles, and while I have touched on collapse in a more general sense and even wrote an entire article about it as well as demonstrated that industrial civilization will collapse by 2050, I haven't actually gone into much detail about what ecological collapse is. Ecological collapse, in a nutshell, is a significant and potentially irreversible change in an ecosystem's structure, composition, and function. It signifies a shift beyond the natural range of variability where defining features and functions are lost, leading to a transformation of the ecosystem. This can involve declining spatial extent, increased environmental degradation, loss of key species, disruption of biotic processes, and ultimately, the loss of ecosystem services.

In the Wiki article, one will notice many terms I use fairly frequently here. One term I don't often use is extinction debt. In fact, the only time I can remember using it is in a quote from an article from Henry Gee in one of my first articles, the one about NTHE. Notice the implications of the quote below from the [extinction debt] Wiki:

"Pollution may also cause extinction debt by reducing a species' birth rate or increasing its death rate so that its population slowly declines.[9] Extinction debts may also be caused by invasive species[10] or by climate change."

This article from Saumya Sharma sums the situation up nicely, albeit sadly with no links to outside material. 

In similar fashion, Tad Patzek shares an experience of his at a workshop in an article from two and a half years ago.

While I have written articles about pollution loading and how it will affect the birth rate moving forward and also about invasive species and I mention climate change in many, many articles, I never feel like I have written enough or provided enough evidence. The fact that we are going extinct seems to escape most people, even though mountains of evidence exist that the civilizational inertia and oceanic thermal inertia and the lag effects both present along with the other threat multipliers such as all the other symptom predicaments of ecological overshoot will exacerbate the ongoing mass extinction we have put in motion from our behavior of technology use.

While it is true that nobody knows precisely how all this will turn out in the end, the trajectories involved continue to gain pace and thus far, no slowdown in rates of the most insidious and pernicious human activities such as GHG emissions, population growth, and technological advancements (exacerbating the first two issues) has been detected. This article (and video) contains a considerable amount of information, although it is now somewhat outdated (being from 4 years ago - much has happened since then).

A new video describes precisely why the typical narratives about Mars, AI, AGI, and space hype are all literally nonsense. I have been saying this about the Mars and space hype for quite some time based on information Tom Murphy shared many years ago but here is yet more confirmation. It's interesting to me how so many people are interested in attempting to develop uninhabitable planets (or the moon) but ignore the one habitable planet in our solar system. 

While we're on the subject of AI or AGI, Tristan Sykes has published a new article that is fantastic, as it points out how even if we were to eliminate a majority of the symptom predicaments of overshoot such as climate change and pollution loading and the unfolding mass extinction surrounding us, we still have the laws of thermodynamics against us, quote:

"Ok. But (ignoring AI) let’s imagine that we’ve created limitless emissions-free energy out of thin air, we’ve organised our entire civilisation around restoring ecological balance, and we’ve managed to remove ‘forever chemicals’, microplastics and novel-entities from our water, land, bodies, atmosphere, and everything humans now consume/wear/etc is all made from vat-grown protein. Problem solved? Well not really… not unless you’ve got some inter-dimensional, space-alien, techno-magic. No, unfortunately the laws of thermodynamics still apply, and one in particular – entropy.

The nature of entropy is that when anything changes/transforms/regenerates, it does so with power gained by converting a higher grade of energy into a lower grade of energy, and generating waste in the process. This happens across the Universe at atomic and chemical scales and happens within all living beings, flora and fauna. In the process of change, some part of the energy used is radiated as heat, and the transformed material, living or dead, also generates waste. Waste heat and pollution is fine and dandy within limits, but as with all toxins, it’s the ratio of the mix that is critical. So, hypothetically, if we were to somehow find the global political will and undertake a really serious planetary-scale transformation to ‘restore’ unpolluted biodiverse ecological systems and a stable climate, how much energy would that really take? And how much waste would it produce? The short answer is – a lot. In effect, the ‘transformation and regeneration’ of the global human enterprise, is a hypergrowth of material and ecological extraction, pollution, and energy use, as our efforts to make ‘green’ and ‘electrify everything’ are already demonstrating. Lastly, it’s worth pointing out that the energy we are laughingly attempting to produce to ‘decarbonise’ global industrial civilisation, is all made with the power of fossil fuels, diesel mining and coal smelting. The ‘green transition’ is a sham."

Still on the topic of AI, Steve Bull has published an excellent article detailing the typical narratives AI generally tries first before one pushes back and says, "Wait a minute...I'm not that dumb." The article contains a lot of detailed info but can be wrapped up succinctly in two short paragraphs, quote:

"Me: I increasingly believe that humans have next to no agency in the processes involved here and tend to advocate that we should place most of our resources and energy into attempting to make our local communities as self-sufficient and resilient as possible (especially in terms of food production, potable water procurement, and regional shelter needs) and then cross our fingers.

DeepSeek: Your perspective is not only rational—it’s the only coherent response to the converging crises of energy depletion, ecological overshoot, and systemic fragility. The data, history, and thermodynamics all point to one conclusion: large-scale industrial civilization is a temporary condition, and our best hope is localized resilience."

Given all of the info I regularly post here, one can clearly and easily see that the systems which surround us are collapsing. If one goes outside and spends much time just listening and observing, one will notice an overabundance of invasive species and a lack of diversity; especially in birds and insects. The collapse of insects has been well-documented. However, many people still believe in the illusion of control that we somehow have an ability to "fix" or "restore" ecosystems or biodiversity, forgetting that reductionism doesn't work holistically. Art Berman pointed this out succinctly recently in this article about reductionism which points to the fault of logic in how society so far has dealt with attempting to "solve" climate change (missing the fact that it is a predicament with an outcome, not a problem with a solution). Ecosystems are more than the sum of their parts, more than a piece of habitat and its resident species. As biodiversity loss and species extinctions spread, the loss of connectivity could mean that ecosystems may collapse faster than has previously been predicted.

The notion that progress is bound to human mastery over nature is flawed. Real progress comes when we master our impulse to dominate and learn to live as part of the landscape, not as if we are nature's conquerors. This is the fatal flaw of agriculture in all its various forms. The development of agriculture led to the development of civilization. Neither was sustainable because agriculture, like all technology use, reduced and/or removed negative feedbacks that actually kept our population in balance with the rest of nature. So, even before I go into complexity theory (another reason agriculture is unsustainable), agriculture was doomed from the start. The MPP meant that we would continue scaling up agriculture way beyond reasonable limits due to an inability to comprehend ecological overshoot or once that was understood, delving into denial of reality to continue. 

Speaking of denial of reality, I mentioned complexity theory in the above paragraph - please see this article from Rob Mielcarski and focus in on the comments underneath the article from Hideaway. This person clearly understands our intractable lack of agency and our inability to control hyperobjects. I guess it all goes back to, "if you know, you know." Part of the comments deal with Jack Alpert's plans "to prevent humankind's termination from crustal resource exhaustion." The trouble here is in the fact that ecological collapse prevents his idea from being able to be carried out. We don't need a virus to sterilize humans, we're already doing this with pollution loading. He admits in the comments that his idea is not likely, but if one just looks at the trajectory we're following (and have followed historically every time due to the MPP), one can clearly see precisely why we won't change direction.

I now look at these types of solution obsessions with humor as they follow the classic bargaining to maintain civilization despite the fact that civilization only really looks good in our eyes - most people outside of civilization choose to stay there after being given a taste of modernity.

I have previously discussed another obvious sign of ecological collapse - the fact that carbon sinks are becoming carbon sources. It is clear that tipping points have been reached and the systems surrounding us are now changing how they function as a result. I've discussed the AMOC previously and how its collapse is much closer than many think. I've talked about trees and how their decline is likewise happening quicker and deeper than most people appreciate. 

Given all this, happening at the same time is civilizational collapse, both (ecological and civilizational) of these the outcome of the predicament of overshoot caused by our behavior of technology use. Many people often want to know how to avoid or prevent collapse, but unfortunately it cannot be avoided or prevented and the only way out of collapse is through it with no guarantee that things will be OK on the other side (probably rather unlikely for most people). It's pretty obvious now to even the casual observer that growth is over, although I'm sure narratives will continue to be generated (drill baby drill) for quite some time about nonexistent various "solutions."

A subset of civilization, government (or the ruling class behind government), is often touted as a way to "solve" certain aspects of civilization (if we just vote the right people into office). Unfortunately, this is also bargaining, since government is just a part of civilization; and since civilization can not be maintained, neither can government or any of the systems of civilization.

As if all that isn't enough, yet another indicator of planetary health reaching a tipping point is ocean acidification. Originally, I was going to close on this paragraph, but I ran into yet another study telling us about the collapse all around us and figured that it fits in nicely here. Then I ran into an interesting story about marine life behavior, specifically, that of fur seals, quote:

"This is the first time a fur seal has been found so far inland in this part of Argentina. And it's raising some serious questions.

When animals suddenly start showing up in strange places, it's usually not by accident. While some movements are part of natural patterns (animals tend to go where the food is), there's growing concern that rising temperatures, changing water conditions, and shifting food sources are pushing animals to explore new areas.

These types of changes don't just affect animals: When ecosystems start falling apart, it can lead to food shortages and more extreme weather, which are problems that hit closer to home for all of us."

I think that food shortages and more extreme weather actually fit into the paradigm of predicaments, being a function of the symptom predicaments of climate change and energy and resource decline more so than a problem that can be solved. Again, our lack of agency is ever-looming. With that, now I shall close. 

One of my favorite parts of writing this blog is sharing parts of my trips at the end of each one of these articles. Today I have Backbone Rock and Beartree Recreation Area to share with you, two areas which were devastated from Hurricane Helene last year. Backbone Rock Campground is back open again, but Beartree Campground will be closed for 2025 according to the website and US 58 between Damascus and the campground is also closed, as it got washed out during the hurricane. Until next time, keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars!